The Song O' Steam

“ I’ m sick of all their quirks an’ turns — the
loves an’ doves they dream —
Lord, send a man like Robbie Burns to sing
the Song o’ Steam ! ”

RUDYARD KIPLING, McAndrew’s Hymn.

ALTHOUGH Mr. Kipling has furnished the text, this brief paper is in no way intended as a criticism or even as an examination of his verse. That he has in various places expressed more or less distinctly a sentiment similar to that which he here puts into the mouth of McAndrew is for the moment of less consequence than the fact that many moderns share the feeling with him. Often vaguely phrased and doubtless vaguely felt, but not infrequently explicitly held and stated, the opinion becomes more common every day that the poetry of the future is to be the poetry of science and invention, of steam and electricity, of microbes and bacteria; in short, of the triumphs of the intellect of man. The inquiry into such a theory is naturally one of intense interest; and while only the future can settle the question, speculation upon it has much fascination, and is not without value from the light which it may cast upon the nature and conditions of literary art.

I.

To understand what material is adapted to poetic use, it is necessary to have some definite idea what poetry is and what is its function. To endeavor to define either within the limits of a magazine article is almost certainly to appear dogmatic, from lack of space to justify conclusions. The risk must be to some extent faced for the sake of having at least an established point of departure ; although nothing more need be attempted than to give a working rather than a completely philosophical definition.

Like all art, poetry is essentially an attempt to convey emotion. Whatever form and whatever material it employs, whatever appeal it makes to the intellect or to the imagination, all are but means to this chief end of arousing the feelings.

The proposition has the air of a truism. Nobody is likely to contend that it is the office of poetry to convey information, while didactic poems have at least done so much as to establish the conviction that it is not the mission of verse to moralize. It is necessary to examine our definition a little, however, from the difficulty of being sure just what is meant in it by “emotion.” The interpretation given to this word and the limits which are thus set to the boundaries of the art of poetry may determine the whole question which we have to consider.

The term “ emotion ” may be so extended in meaning as to include all human feeling which is secondary to sensation ; but a single thought makes it clear that there is somewhere a division between feelings which are and those which are not suited to poetic treatment. The division may be made according to the importance of a given sentiment. The feelings of a child with a cake or an apple are genuine, and very likely intense; yet the issue involved is so trivial, when measured by the great realities of life, as to make infant emotions unworthy of high poetic treatment. We do not seriously receive as poetry Thackeray’s gay little verse in The Rose and the Ring : —

Distinction may also be made in accordance with the nearness of given sensations to normal human experiences. The sentiments of a man in fantastically unreal surroundings, for instance, do not as a rule seize the imagination of the reader. The emotional experiences of Thalaba are hardly nearer to sane humanity than the delightful extravagancies of Alice in Wonderland. That this obstacle may be overcome has been triumphantly proved by Shakespeare and Coleridge, not to mention others; but it remains a difficulty, even in the hands of a master. Emotion, again, may be found well or ill adapted to poetic treatment according to its possible or probable universality. The thing which all men may have experienced, as love, or fear, or pain, or hope, commends itself instantly as a subject peculiarly adapted for use in an attempt to arouse the imagination.¹ Finally, perhaps most important of all, is the question whether the emotion is personal and individual. Man goes to literature to learn what are the possibilities of life as they concern individual existence. He may be interested in general conclusions, but he is moved only by the revelation of the inner life of some single human being. The sentiments and passions of masses can be effectively used in poetry only as interpreted and made vital by the experiences and feelings of a single being. Broadly speaking, the more serious an emotion, the more sanely and universally human, the more individual and personal, the better it is adapted to poetic embodiment.

The nature of the subject with which poetry must deal will of necessity determine the sort of material which is to be used in expressing it. The conditions just laid down should help to a clearer understanding of what may or may not be properly and advantageously used by the poet. As the object of the singer is to convey emotion, he must deal chiefly with suggestion. Facts may be stated, but feelings must be evoked. Material is or is not poetic in so far as it will arouse the mind of the reader to create for itself, and thus incite it to realize for itself emotional possibilities. The test of the value of material is, then, its power to suggest the sentiments which come within the domain of the poet.

Of course there are degrees in all things, and often material which does not perfectly fulfill the conditions laid down may, by the skill of the poet, be brought into use not ineffectively. These conditions are so fundamental, however, that, whether they are recognized or not, they will govern the success of work ; and in the matter of poetic material a poet approaches the ideal in proportion as that material is of a nature to arouse emotions dignified, human, sane, universal, and individual.

II.

The question practically before us is, whether there is any sound basis for the traditional or conventional feeling that science and utilitarian means and methods are not adapted to use in poetry. Although there is in modern times much demand — for the most part from laymen — for the introduction into song of machinery and science, singers have still kept largely to the old ways and employed the old means. It is not unfair to add, moreover, that departures from established ways have not as a rule been conspicuously successful in the few instances in which they have been tried. The question is, How far is this poetic conservatism justified, and how far is it simply a slavish adherence to outworn tradition ?

If we are correct in the conditions which we have laid down as essential to the fitness of poetic material, the answer to this question is to be arrived at by seeing how far modern inventions fulfill these conditions.

In examinations of this sort concrete examples are often most helpful; and it is possible to get some light by so simple a contrast as that between sword and gun. Despite the fact that by long and too often unmeaning use the mention of a sword has become thoroughly hackneyed ; notwithstanding, too, that the actual use of the sword has largely disappeared from modern warfare ; enormous as is the influence of the gun in our present civilization, and great the part it plays in peace and war alike, yet the mention of the sword continues to be more likely to inspire poetic feeling and to arouse the imagination than any allusion to the gun, no matter how adroit. Used sometimes with effect as a general symbol, a sort of background as it were, the gun remains obstinately unpoetic when it comes to the particular, or to exalted moods. Perhaps genius sufficiently great could touch the imagination by a picture of a hero raising his gun to shoot down at long range his deadly foe, but at present this appears a literary feat so difficult as to be impossible. The mere mention, on the contrary, of the bold warrior’s taking his sword in hand to fight for right and life awakens instant response. The difference is not caused by popular experience. More of the readers addressed are likely to have handled a gun than a sword, but probably most have never meddled with either. The difference of effect lies, I believe, in the intense individualism of the use of the sword. The actual peril of the man who fights with a gun may be greater than that of him who uses the sword; yet in arousing the imagination the peril of the former is less effective, because it is in a sense so much more remote and uncertain. There is always a feeling, moreover, that he who wars at a distance may to some extent count upon happy chance, while in a hand-to-hand encounter danger is unavoidable. The reader instinctively kindles at the thought of the instant, immediate, personal peril of the man fighting breast to breast with the sword, while the idea of the sharpshooter firing upon an enemy from afar gives no such sensation. If the analysis of the matter were carried further, it might bring us to the fact that instant, close danger appeals to universal experience. Every man knows in some degree what it is to stand face to face with fear, and even a sluggish imagination is able to carry this experience forward to some more or less adequate realization of the quivering emotion of deadly sword-play; while most men feel that the use of a gun is at least not inconsistent with shelter and comparative safety. Here and throughout something is to be allowed to conventional use. We have become accustomed to the sword as a symbol, and to some extent accept it from habit. Aside from this, however, there is a constant difference in the emotional power of steel and of firearms as an incitement to emotion. For instance, what would be the effect of the well-known line “ the avenging sword unsheathe,” if for “sword” were substituted " gun ” ?

The contrast between a boat and a steamer also illustrates this point well. In a boat or a vessel, the oars, the sails, the rudder, are all personal, instant, handled directly by living men. If there is danger, it is met closely, face to face ; the sailor feels the brunt of the sea and the wind on his very forehead, in his very bosom. The intellect is perfectly aware that the peril on the sea, if not so great to the steamer as to the ship, is yet enough to command sympathy and arouse compassion ; yet the sense of personal contact between man and nature brings it about that sailing craft touch the imagination naturally and surely, while the steamer is to the fancy mechanical, impersonal, unemotional.

Instances are easily multiplied. One has but to contrast the horse with the locomotive, the sickle with the steamreaper, the distaff with the spinningjenny, to feel that it is practically impossible to produce the same quickening of the imagination by means of the one class of objects as by means of the other.

The problem is not a new one, and it is not difficult to conceive that it may have presented itself to the mind of thoughtful men when the printing-press came to dispute sovereignty with the pen. Compared with modern machines, the early press was personal, and hence it has been possible to use allusions to it with some success in modern verse. Compared, however, with the pen which it supplanted, even the hand-press is remote, mechanical, and consequently unemotional. The result is that even today, though penny-a-liners and rhymers of what might be called celluloid verse have constantly employed the image of the old monkish scribe writing with loving patience in his cell, it is possible still for a poet to evoke an emotional response by the same means, while no genius has succeeded in making poetic the press of our time, wonderful and all-powerful engine though it is.

To take yet one case more, if the poet has to deal with an unjust execution, the penalty which a noble man pays for fidelity to a high cause, he may heighten greatly his effect by picturing the block or the fiery stake. If a martyr, no matter how illustrious, were to be " electrocuted,” what could the poet do with the fact in his song? He would dwell upon the nobility of the death, but even the barest mention of the method would suggest ideas so unpoetic as to imperil if not to destroy the whole effect. The poetic atmosphere would be entirely dissipated by the suggestion of mechanical appliances, the strength of currents, and kindred ideas. At the block, moreover, the condemned has a certain freedom which allows him to preserve his personal dignity; while in the electric-chair he is so swathed in bonds that the coward and the hero appear as if on the same unworthy level. The brave man cannot there by his hearing distinguish himself from the veriest craven. The fact of martyrdom, of self-sacrifice, is always inspiring ; but circumstances may easily obscure the significance of this fact. The death of a martyr, by whatever means, is in itself proper material for poetry ; but it is evident that the method of that death may be entirely the reverse.

III.

In what we have been saying we have been considering the nature of the emotions aroused ; but the fundamental question is whether given material will or will not arouse these. The essential object of art being to communicate and to create feeling, it follows that whatever appeals more strongly to the intellect than to the emotions is in so far unfitted for artistic use. However much poetry may make the reader think, it fails unless it make him feel more. A mathematical problem may give pleasure, but this enjoyment is unæsthetic because it is so completely dependent upon the understanding ; and between imaginative enjoyment and intellectual delight it is necessary to draw the line with much distinctness.

The action upon the mind of intellectual suggestion, and the effect of emotional suggestion, it is easy to see, are essentially different. The one produces perception and admiration ; the other, participation and sympathy. We comprehend and admire that which is addressed to the understanding ; we share and we thrill with that which touches the sensibility. Intellectual enjoyment demands intellectual comprehension in direct proportion to its intensity. We are able to experience it only so far as we understand it. Admiration of scientific achievement may be keen, but it can hardly be passionate. The suggestion of the triumphs of the mind of man makes us think rather than feel ; and the result is inevitably unæsthetic. It is not even the office of art to excite intellectual processes save as these induce emotion, and it is hopeless to attempt to use as artistic material that which is primarily to be appreciated by the thought only.

The achievements of the age in science and mechanics are so tremendous that they may well cause a man to catch his breath with amazement and almost with awe. If it is possible to embody this general effect, this spirit of wonder and reverence, there is no question that “ the song o’ steam ” may fulfill the most exacting conditions of art, and that the telegraph, the steam - engine, and the dynamo may prove most effective material in the hands of the poet. The specific details of inventions are manifestly too intellectual to be of use æsthetically, but one would think that this splendid exultation in the conquests of human knowledge could be so used in art as to be triumphantly successful.

The first practical danger in the endeavor to convey this general effect is the difficulty of separating it from the consideration of particular means. The moment that there enters a consideration of methods, of mechanics, of cost, or of scientific principles, the mind of the reader takes control of the imagination, and the poem turns to prose on his hands. One of the most fascinating books imaginable from an intellectual point of view is Darwin’s Descent of Man ; but the idea of making poetry of even this masterpiece of science is obviously absurd. To use common parlance, it is addressed to the head, and not to the heart ; and therefore it must remain prose to the end of the chapter. A cyclopean engine, storming a great ship through the waves and the winds of the tempest-swept Atlantic, holding in its care the treasure and the lives of hundreds, bearing joy or sorrow with the impartiality and the implacability of fate, is a superbly impressive thing in the abstract. If we try to press home this idea upon the reader quickened to the sensitively receptive poetic mood, his mind is almost inevitably seized with curiosity in regard to details of construction, and is benumbed by the consciousness that this gigantic power is but a machine, unknowing, irresponsible, unresponsive.

It is my own belief, I may remark in passing, that the division of power and will is detrimental, it not destructive, to imaginative effect. A man and a sword are practically one. The means and the will are so closely united that the sword has no individual existence in the fancy ; while in the case of a rifle it is almost as if we had to do with a separate entity. A horse gives himself up so completely to his rider that an effect of unity of will is produced. When it comes to a mighty machine, it is all but impossible for the imagination to blend man and means into one conception. The machine keeps its personality, and the fact that it lacks intelligence leaves it without the power to yield itself up and merge its individuality in that of its master. Since it cannot know that it is a slave, it seems subtly to keep its independence ; in virtue of the fact that it has no will to be broken, it remains forever unsubdued. Of course this feeling may be largely personal, and I do not wish to insist upon it. My excuse for mentioning it at all is that it is a possible explanation of the difficulty of blending machine and master which many besides myself must have felt.

It is, then, the general results of great mechanical devices that must be relied upon for poetic effects. Particular details can be comprehended only by experts, and they address themselves to the mind rather than to the feelings. The idea, however, of the effects of modern inventions has in it nothing new per se. Our ships fly across the ocean as a shuttle flies through the web of a weaver; the telegraph and the telephone bridge the distance so that friends converse together over half the world ; electricity dispels the darkness and achieves a thousand marvels more: yet what is there in any of these things which has not already been discounted and excelled in the fairy-lore of all ages ? Generations have grown thoroughly accustomed to the thought of each marvel as an idea. “ But,”it is urged, “now it is actual.” True, and is therefore the less impressive as an emotional suggestion. That it is actual results in its being surrounded by commonplace suggestions, practical details, vulgar comparisons, the questions of rates of speed, of fares, of relation to travel and traffic, and a host of ideas utterly destructive to æsthetic mood or effect. Superb as are the masterpieces of invention, they yet bring with them in their achievement a sentiment of the odor of the sweat of toil and the scar of the whip of the slave-driver.

IV.

I have remarked already that to arouse the interest of the reader in a mass or in a cause it is necessary to reach him through the medium of the individual. A man is able imaginatively to share the feelings of another where he cannot grasp the consciousness of an army or a party. In the same way, it is possible for readers who themselves have no interest in science or machinery, and no appreciation of these, to be moved by the feeling of a man who is deeply affected by one or the other. It is possible, for instance, for many who are incapable of caring for a machine except as a matter of intellectual interest, to sympathize with the affection of an engineer for his engine. It is true that in such a case sympathy is almost surely less vivid than it would be were the object of affection more generally appreciated. He who is fond of a sword, a dog, a horse, appeals to a common and well-nigh universal sentiment. The reader feels that the engineer is not so much a man in his relations to his love as he is a specialist. The quality of humanity, however, remains constant. The engineer is outside general experience in his choice of object, but he still commands sympathy from the fact that he cares for something. The thing for which he cares is no matter. Sympathy goes out to him as a human being, moved by a universal human sentiment.

It is the sentiment, and not the object, which arouses sympathy and kindles the imagination. No mistake could be more complete than to suppose that in the case just mentioned is to be found any argument in favor of the use of machinery as material for poetry. In McAndrew’s Hymn it is the character of the stanch old engineer and his feelings by which the reader is moved. The wonders of the great engine are a hindrance, and not a help, if they are looked at in any way other than through the eyes of McAndrew. The piece succeeds or fails to the degree in which it makes his emotion real and contagious to the reader; and that, too, as emotion pure and simple, quite without regard to what has excited it. In so far as the attention is caught by tail-rod, crank-throws, feeding-pump, and “ purrin’ dynamoes,” — finely suggestive as is the epithet in this last, — the emotional effect is weakened at the expense of the intellectual.

A poem of this sort succeeds, moreover, not only in proportion as it keeps the emotional superior to the intellectual, but in proportion as it makes the reader realize how general is the character of the feelings embodied. In this especial case, for instance, there is danger from the fact that the reader is constantly aware that the love of a man for a machine has in it an element of the unusual and peculiar, and that it is actually to be shared only by those who have lived in similar contact with machinery. McAndrew’s enthusiasm is founded upon an experience rather far removed from ordinary human life. If we appreciate the devout fervor of the old man, we are moved ; but we should be more readily moved if the object of his reverent emotion were a sleeping child, a frothing torrent, or the sun-flushed crest of Mont Blanc. In either case, however, it is the man, and not the machine. The song which Mr. Kipling sings is what he has named it. It is not “ the song o’ steam,” but the hymn of McAndrew. We are touched, if at all, not by the mighty engine, but by the emotion with which the old man regards it. It is the human, personal emotion which is poetic. It is not the triumph of mind over the forces of nature, but man’s uplifting in contemplating that triumph.

v.

With intellectual triumphs, then, art has small concern. It may deal with the emotions which these cause. " The song o’ steam" is a contradiction of terms, if it is taken literally. Poetry may embody the feelings which are aroused in man by the contemplation of the triumph of human skill over natural forces; but these feelings must be expressed in the language of poetry, and not in that of science. They must be embodied in symbols which appeal not to the understanding so much as to the imagination.

As an actual fact, the rider dashing madly along on jet-black steed may be hurrying to market to get the best price on a flock of sheep or a crop of cabbages ; while the dull-looking man, well booted and well gloved, who is sitting prosaically in a smoking-car, may be bound on an errand of the most chivalrous daring. Yet the rider excites the imagination, and the other does not. Philistines cite instances of this sort to prove that art is a sham and inconsistent. The truth is that what appeals to the feelings is the suggestion of daring, of peril, of emotional possibilities in the wild-looking horseman, — suggestion which is entirely lacking in the conventional passenger by rail. The suggestion is genuine ; it calls up the idea of what is genuine. That it is not in harmony with actual circumstances is of no consequence. In the case of either traveler we are moved by what we know ; and it is nothing to the point that there is seeming discrepancy between this and facts which we cannot know. Indeed, if we did know, there would be no difference. The wild rider would remain the symbol of danger, of adventure, of emotion and passion ; while the passenger by rail would suggest only commonplace associations.

So, when all is said, the fact remains that whatever we may know about the power, the wonder, the greatness in construction and in effect, of the machine, it will to the end remain the symbol of ideas thoroughly unpoetic. Mechanical and scientific devices, no matter how ingenious, how wonderful, how efficient, are so closely and inevitably connected with ideas utilitarian, practical, and at best intellectual, that it is practically impossible to employ them successfully in an appeal to the imagination. Nor need this be cause for regret. Men say continually that the tales are all told, and that the language of art has become hackneyed; yet when the genius comes the old stories become new, and the hackneyed language takes upon it again the freshness of immortal youth.

Arlo Bates.